About Us

Level Up Literacy Program is a summer tutoring for literacy instruction. It provides research-based, individualized, one-on-one tutoring which utilizes Lindamood-Bell based curriculum.

Level Up Literacy contracts teachers with a bachelor’s degree or higher and trains them in the specifics of the Lindamood-Bell Seeing Stars and Visualizing & Verbalizing programs.

Students receive one-on-one, individually leveled tutoring in hour long sessions with each of the tutors throughout the summer. Having a variety of instructors promotes additional interest and engagement.

Lesson Structure for the Seeing Stars Program

Direct Phonemic and Phonic Instruction

1.     Vowel Circle (18 vowel sounds & their common spelling patterns-created by Lindamood-Bell)

2.     Consonants name & sound, blends, & digraph as needed

3.     Syllable Imagery-seeing the syllable in your mind’s eye

4.     Airwriting/Imaging-Reading & Spelling with your mind’s eye

5.     Direct teaching of spelling rules, multisyllables, & affixes to develop orthographic spelling

6.     Decoding (Reading words)/Encoding (Spelling words) working on specific skills

7.     Sight Word-capturing new, practicing, and graduating

Fluency and Comprehension Skills

8.     Reading Connected Text

9.     Writing response

Mary L. Spencer, M.Ed., originally formed American Reading Corps. Mary is the author of Common Core Teaching for Foundational Reading Skills: Volume One: Instructional Guidance and Single Syllable Word Lists for Effective Phonics Instruction . She is a K-12 Reading Specialist who also produces resources for reading intervention. Her training includes Lindamood-Bell certification and she worked for their Learning Centers for over a decade. This experience shaped the reading tutoring program she created.

In 2021, American Reading Corps. became Level Up Literacy Program when Mary passed on her tutoring business to Rachel Gaspar. Mary moved Rhode Island to pursue her doctorate degree and reading instruction at the national level. Rachel, who had tutored with Mary for 2 years, has continued the reading program each summer. Rachel earned a bachelors in Elementary Education in 2003 and has pursued continuing education in the area of the science of reading for the past five years.